Via Marine Corps Times
Manning the top of a compound south of Sangin, Afghanistan, Sgt. Paul Boothroyd III took a sniper round to the head. He landed face down onto the muddy roof with a thud.Wow, just wow.
Fifteen minutes later, Boothroyd was bandaged, smiling, smoking a cigarette and giving the “thumbs up” as he waited for the medevac helicopter, to which he walked under his own power.
It’s a “you-gotta-be-kidding-me” story that earned Boothroyd, a signals intelligence operator with 2nd Radio Battalion, a new call sign from his team members: Headshot.
“It was a one-in-a-million shot that the sniper was even able to hit me,” he said in an interview with Marine Corps Times, “and a one-in-a-million chance that the bullet didn’t destroy my brain. It wasn’t my time.”[...]
“It was like being hit by a train,” he recalled. “I remember what I was doing. I remember being hit, then I was face down in the mud on top of the building. I really wasn’t terribly concerned because I could hear bullets whipping above me, but I still had the presence of mind not to stand up. I thought, ‘Well, I don’t have any brain damage, at least at this point.’ ”
“My lieutenant pulled me to the edge of the roof so they could take a look at me,” he added. “I got a little upset when they were pulling my Kevlar off. I said, ‘Hey, if that’s holding my brain together, I’m going to be upset if you take it off.’”
The corpsman examining him found the bullet behind his ear. Now he hopes to keep it as a memento.[More...]
h/t BigPeace
[Cross posted at the Jawa Report
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